Friday, December 7, 2018

Let me be blunt and say that the Deacon Chryssavgis' videos put out when the Crete event was in full swing, filled with sweeping hand motions, grandiose delivery, and sometimes farcical statements were possibly my least favorite part of covering the kerfuffl-o-council. They reminded me of the videos of Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf (aka "Baghdad Bob") the Iraqi Information Minister famously claiming victory while the US blew through his forces and took the country in a matter of days. The Crete videos sought to give people some context for what was going on during the meetings in Crete, but often served to either enrage detractors or amuse them.

Chryssavgis, a contributor to the reviled Public Orthodoxy blog, has returned to YouTube with videos (see an example embedded below) on the Ukraine situation that describe what is going on in a way that I think will have an equally insalubrious response from many of the same people who opposed his viewpoints during the "Pan-Orthodox" Council in 2016.

13 comments:

I watched about 6, 7 minutes of just one of his videos just after Crete. Actually, it was not "his" video I don't think - he was on a panel and it was his turn to talk.

At first he reminded me of a modern "advertising" man, but then I realized he was a *propaganda* man in every sense of the term. It's hard to describe, but his whole approach was so dismissive and poisonous it really was a sight to behold. It is nothing less than diabolical.

Shortly after I was assigned his book on the sacrament of marriage in a class. I did not even bother to read it. He is the only well known/placed Orthodox author I have ever treated as such...

Thank goodness we have Met. Hilarion Alfeyev and the MP to unmask all this propaganda and give us the TRUTH! Moscow can't stand by and let Ukraine be exploited to distract from its problems at home and to retake its imperial... er wait.

It’s kinda questionable to talk about either the EP or the Moscow Patriarchate as having some sort of “propaganda machine”. The EP has it’s representatives who support the position of the EP, and the MP has its representatives who support the position of the MP. Accusing either side of propagandizing is a little insulting.

I will have to disagree with you Randy. The overriding character of this conflict/disagreement has been one of two sides not trying to understand and find consensus with the other, but rather trying to persuade everyone else, in a zero sum campaign of *persuasion*. It has all the characteristics of propaganda...

At what point in this crisis has the EP indicated any willingness to discuss the outcome with the MP? It hasn't. It announced what it intended to do, and basically has given the MP and the rest of the Church the middle finger.

Since these actions are not improving its standing in the Orthodox world, the only thing that makes sense is that they are trying to see how much of the Church they can take with them on their way out the door to a unia with Rome.

“Transcends Nationalism” as they support the establishment of a nationalist and ethnocentric schismatic group...”promoting unity” by provoking the biggest schism since 1054, and ignoring the wishes of the local canonical Ukrainian church. The mental gymnastics required to say all of this with a straight face...

I went and had a look at the "reviled" Public Orthodoxy blog and...it seems okay? There are a variety of contributors, but nothing jumped out at me as extremist or anything (at least not in the first few pages).

In the past they have put out alot of very insulting and pro-LGBT agenda stuff, and often insulting articles with a very anti-ROC tilt to them, and stuff pushing for the liberalization of orthodox doctrine.https://publicorthodoxy.org/tag/homosexuality/https://publicorthodoxy.org/2017/10/27/my-gay-orthodox-friends-suicide/http://fatherjohn.blogspot.com/2017/11/cultural-marxism-and-public-orthodoxy.html

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."